After a disillusioning attempt to become a candidate for the federal Liberal party, Vancouver businessman Barj Dhahan is stepping up his philanthropic efforts.

The owner of the Sandhurst Group is spearheading a major scholarship program for 20 aboriginal students and on Saturday in Vancouver will hand out a $25,000 prize for the best in Punjabi literature.

“I’ve been blessed by my family coming to Canada,” said Dhahan, who wants to help people of all cultures integrate into and serve the country, which he values for its economic strength and democracy.

Dhahan admits he was “understandably disappointed” that the federal Liberal party last year pressured him not to run for a seat in the riding of Vancouver South, which has a large Punjabi-Canadian population.

Instead, Dhahan said Liberal officials manoeuvred for the only declared candidate to be military veteran Harjit Sajjan, whom Justin Trudeau went on to appoint minister of defence.

Dhahan declined the party’s “last-minute” offer to run as a candidate in a riding in Surrey, saying Thursday that “Mr. Trudeau had said he would do politics differently.”

Even though Dhahan has given up his lifelong Liberal party membership, as have many of his dejected Punjabi supporters, he continues to believe strongly in “grassroots democracy” and in promoting inter-cultural connection.

That’s part of the reason — in addition to playing a lead role in the influential Canada-India Education Society and a Canada-India-aboriginal research organization called IC-Impacts — that he is putting so much energy into highlighting Punjabi literature.

Since Dhahan arrived in B.C. as a youth from India, attending Vancouver’s John Oliver high school and the University of B.C., he has become convinced that not only should every immigrant learn English or French, but that most Canadians should pick up at least one extra language.

He has directed significant sums of the money he has made operating B.C. fast-food outlets and gas stations into the Dhahan Prize for Punjabi Literature because he wants to “promote the language and life of a 1,000-year-old literary tradition.”

Over the long run, Dhahan’s plan is for the winners of the Dhahan Punjabi literature prize to have their novels, plays and stories translated into English.

On Saturday evening Dhahan will be at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology for the award’s gala third anniversary, when the top Punjabi literature prize of $25,000 will go to short-story writer Jarnail Singh, who immigrated to Greater Toronto in 1988.

This year’s top Punjabi literature prize of $25,000 goes to short-story writer Jarnail Singh of Greater Toronto. Singh explains in the sidebar below why so many Punjabis want to leave India.

There are more than 110 million Punjabi-speaking people in the world, Dhahan says, mostly in Pakistan and India.

While many have emigrated to Britain, the U.S. and Greater Toronto, Dhahan said, “Metro Vancouver, especially Surrey, has probably the highest concentration of Punjabis in North America.”

Punjabi is the mother tongue of roughly 250,000 B.C. residents. “And our province is home to some recognized writers like Ajmer Rode and Sadhu Binning, who write in Punjabi and English.”

Living with wife Rita, who has Mennonite roots, in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kerrisdale, Dhahan has benefited so much from coming to Canada that he wants not only to support Punjabi-Canadians, but to make sure the country’s original inhabitants get a chance, he said.

That’s why Dhahan and others are sponsoring scholarships for 20 aboriginal students at UBC, which are worth $20,000 each over four years.

“First Nations and indigenous people have faced many barriers in accessing higher education,” he said, explaining why he and his colleagues directed $100,000 into the aboriginal scholarships, with UBC adding an extra $300,000.

Even though the federal and B.C. governments devote millions of dollars toward getting aboriginals into colleges and universities, Dhahan said he wanted to challenge “the stereotypes that all Canadians, including Indo-Canadians of a Punjabi background, have toward First Nations.”

It’s disturbing that so many aboriginal people are not thriving, he said, even while millions of people around the world, mostly from Asia, are desperate to immigrate to Canada so they can profit from the country’s governance, economy and social services.

This week Dhahan said he and this year’s literature prizewinner, Jarnail Singh, were agreeing on just how bleak things are for so many Punjabi-speaking people in India and Pakistan, where health care and education is often grossly inadequate and corruption is rampant.

“Enormous change is occurring in India and things are getting better for some,” said Dhahan, who often visits the country to advance the health and education projects of the Canada-India Education Society.

“But if you’re poor or from a lower caste, it’s still extremely difficult.”

When it’s mentioned it’s also hard to be poor in Canada, Dhahan said, “There’s no comparison.”

Jarnail Singh explains why Punjabis want to leave India for Canada, the U.S. or Europe

Singh is the winner of the 2016 Dhahan Prize for Punjabi Literature:

“Punjabis have a long history of immigration. They are adventurous and risk takers.

But now more than anything else the poor economic and social reality is pushing them to leave for Canada, US and other countries.

Corruption is rampant in politics, police and even in education. Public education is not good. Graduates from colleges and universities can’t find work. Farming, historically the main stay of Punjab’s economy, is no longer profitable. Farming families are laden with huge debt. Many farmers are committing suicide.

Substance abuse and addictions are a growing menace. Everyone is suffering. If you are ill and need hospital care, the government run hospitals are poorly operated. They don’t have adequate medical and nursing staff, and the patient has to provide her own medicines. The private hospitals and clinics are profit driven. You get skinned alive by the unscrupulous doctors.

So the future is bleak. And immigration has become a huge industry with exploitation by immigration consultants. But people want to immigrate for a better future and better opportunity.”

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